NFL Monday Night
NFL Monday Night is a LIVE TV broadcast of the NFL. NFL Monday Night airs on SC. NFL Monday Night can also be seen in Canada on CASN & in some regions of the world outside the U.S. on SC International. A Spanish language version airs on SC Deportes in the U.S. & on SC International in Latin America. The games also will be made available on regular over-the-air TV stations in each participating team's local market so that households without cable TV can still see the telecast. As of December 28th 2009, the NFL Monday Night franchise had aired a total of 68 games Overview To avoid any scheduling unfairness where a team may have 5 days between games & others 6 before the 1st playoff game, there is no Monday night game during the final week of the regular season. Since 2006, 2 games are played on the opening Monday night to capitalize on fan interest during "Kickoff Weekend". Monday night games early in the season are often highly anticipated since records are new, teams usually are showcasing fresh talent & potential & storylines coming into the season are often played out during as fans try to see if these hyped teams are up to form. Since no one knows during the 1st month of the season if a team is indeed good or will rebound from a difficult start interest is usually high for the 1st few weeks of the NFL Monday Night season. Unfortunately since the NFL Monday Night schedule is set in April & cannot be changed, the league & the network cannot guarantee a late season match up will have any significance or be highly anticipated. Teams thought to be good during the off-season could be out of playoff contention by mid-season. Even if a well performing team was featured on NFL Monday Night late in the year, their opponent could have a mediocre record, causing a number of blowouts. Equally possible is a team having a surprise great year, but since this was unexpected they were not given a Monday night game to play in. The hypocrisy of having a national spotlight game which during the season's most critical weeks late in the year probably would not show the most important game of the week was long known by the league & the network. After 4 years, there now have been a total of 68 games televised by the NFL Monday Night franchise The show as entertainment NFL Monday Night has continued to provide as much entertainment as sports throughout it's run. In addition to the extra cameras, the show has also pioneered technological broadcast innovations, such as the use of enhanced slow motion replays & computerized graphics. The program's affiliation with SC also resulted in numerous promotional crossovers between NFL Monday Night & other SC programs Digital on-screen graphics SC's score banner used since acquiring NFL Monday Night is placed in the middle of the screen on the bottom. It looks all black & with the road team on the left side & the home team on the right side. Also, the team colors are on the sides of the scoreboard. When a touchdown happens, a side of the team who scores the touchdown opens with a team logo & next to it's "TOUCHDOWN" & the score changes number-by-number. NFL Monday Night is the only time this score banner is used. In other sports, a red parallelogram shaped score banner was used. The other on screen graphics are intact. NFL Monday Night began using a more traditional score banner, the "NFL Monday Night Dashboard" @ the bottom of the screen in 2008, with player stats & information being displayed the score & time. SC's NFL broadcasts, even before acquiring NFL Monday Night, have been traditionally somewhat of a testing ground for new graphics for the network's other play-by-play properties. Beginning with the 2008 season, a virtual on-field graphic showing an arrow pointing towards the direction of advancement & the down/yardage information were used on all plays. A play clock was added to the virtual on-field graphic the following season, beginning with the September 14th, 2009 game between the Buffalo Bills & the New England Patriots. NFL Monday Night's scoring banner was given a cosmetic makeover for it's 4th season in 2009. Additionally (beginning with Week 4), timeout indicators were added below each team's abbreviations. (Note: This was 1st used on the SC networks' college football coverage, beginning in 2007) On December 19th 2009, SC debuted a variation of this scoring banner & a graphics package mirroring that of NFL Monday Night for it's college football coverage, beginning with the 2009 New Mexico Bowl. On March 14th 2010, the scoreboard debut for The NBA on SC. On April 4th 2010, The MLB on SC debuted their graphics package on the 2010 Opening Day, the New York Yankees & the Boston Red Sox ''NFL Monday Night'' scoring records * Most points ** 51: New Orleans Saints on November 24th, 2008 * Highest scoring games ** 80 points: New Orleans 51, Green Bay 29 on November 24th, 2008 ** 78 points: Dallas 41, Philadelphia 37 on September 15th, 2008 * Lowest scoring games ** 3 points: Pittsburgh 3, Miami 0 on– November 26th, 2007 ** 9 points: Jacksonville 9, Pittsburgh 0 on September 18th, 2006 Air times *NFL Monday Night Games normally have a kickoff time of 8:30 PM ET. However, when SC airs a doubleheader in the 1st week of the season, the games start @ 7:00 PM & 10:15 PM ET, respectively Facts *The Seattle Seahawks have the most Monday night shutouts with 3. Also, they have shut out their opponents in 2 straight Monday Night appearances, the Oakland Raiders in 2006: 16–0 & the San Francisco 49ers in 2007: 24–0) *A change in the TV contracts in 2006 prompted a significant change in the opening week. On September 11th 2006, the NFL staged it's 1st scheduled Monday night doubleheader on the opening weekend of the season, with both games shown on SC. The Minnesota Vikings defeated the Washington Redskins 19–16, in a game that started @ 7:00 PM ET & the San Diego Chargers topped the Oakland Raiders 27–0, in a game that started @ 10:15 PM ET. SC broadcast a 2nd doubleheader on September 10th, 2007. The Cincinnati Bengals defeated the Baltimore Ravens 27–20, followed by the San Francisco 49ers defeating the Arizona Cardinals 20–17. The Cardinals–49ers game was delayed until 10:25 PM because the Ravens–Bengals game went beyond the allotted time. When the 1st game had still not ended by 10:25, the opening kickoff was moved to SC-2. SC & SC-2 simulcast roughly 1 minute of playing time of the 2nd game immediately after the 1st game ended Foreign language versions Spanish version Since 2006, a Spanish-language telecast is also broadcasted on SC Deportes, the Spanish version of SC & on SC Latin América. Preceding the game NFL Esta Noche (NFL TONIGHT), the 30-minute pre-game show, can be seen on both networks TV ratings The highest-rated NFL Monday Night game on SC & the highest-rated program in U.S. cable TV history to date, was the Minnesota Vikings' defeat over the Green Bay Packers 30–23 on October 5th 2009, with a rating of 15.3. The game featured the much-hyped matchup of Vikings QB Brett Favre facing his longtime former Green Bay team. SC noted in a press release that the telecast "was watched by more than 21.8 million people. The previous record was more than 18.6 million viewers for 2008's Monday night game between the Philadelphia Eagles & Dallas Cowboys. SC also stated that the game drew the highest rating in the network's 30-year history. The 15.3 rating beat the 14.4 for a Bears-Vikings game on Dec. 6th 1987, during SC's 1st season of televising NFL games". SC's lowest-rated NFL Monday Night game to date was the New York Giants' defeat over the Atlanta Falcons on October 15th 2007, which drew a 5.7 rating. SC's 3rd season of NFL Monday Night was the most-watched series on cable TV in 2008. It set an all-time cable viewership record for the 3rd straight year & drew the year's 3 biggest cable household audiences & 13 of the top 15. In 3 seasons on SC, NFL Monday Night has registered 7 of the top 10 all-time biggest household audiences in cable history, led by the Eagles-Cowboys telecast on 9/15/08, which attracted cable's largest household audience ever (an average of 12,953,000 million homes). SC's 17 NFL Monday Night telecasts in 2008 averaged a 8.9 rating, representing an average of 8,679,000 households (11,962,000 viewers), increases of 3%, 5% & 7%, respectively vs. 2007 (8.6; 8,277,000 & 11,230,000) External links